Playing Gears of War E-Day and Forza Horizon 6 on a Googlebook
We have now tested several Googlebooks, and Android games are available, just as they are on smartphones and tablets. However, there are still compatibility issues, which means popular titles such as PUBG or Fortnite do not work. Google itself also actively promotes streaming PC games via Nvidia GeForce Now, which we tested on the Lenovo Googlebook 15 with its 120 Hz OLED display. The familiar GeForce Now Android app also works without any restrictions on Googlebooks. We connected Microsoft's standard Xbox controller via Bluetooth, and the Googlebook recognized it immediately.
In addition to a free tier, which limits gaming sessions to one hour, Nvidia offers two premium plans, each with 100 hours of gaming per month. Aside from the maximum session length, the main difference between them is performance. While the Performance plan supports gaming at 1080p and up to 60 FPS, the Ultimate plan offers up to 360 FPS at 4K. We used the Ultimate plan for our test.
Generally, you need to have purchased a game before linking it to GeForce Now. You can link game libraries from Steam or Xbox, for example. We linked our Xbox account, including GamePass, and immediately had access to the entire game library.
Games then launch as usual, and all settings can be adjusted as normal. The listed hardware includes an AMD CPU with 16 cores, 56 GB of RAM and a GeForce RTX 5080. Without DLSS upscaling or frame generation, the maximum frame rate is generally 90 FPS. Titles such as Forza Horizon 6 and Gears of War E-Day maintained this frame rate without any problems, even with the highest settings selected, including ray tracing. Only Flight Simulator 2024 proved too demanding at maximum detail settings, delivering only around 50 FPS in urban areas. With DLSS and frame generation, the frame rate can be increased to as much as 360 FPS.
Overall, this works very well, and frame rates were extremely stable. There is a slight delay compared with playing on a local PC, but all three titles mentioned were perfectly playable. However, we would not recommend very fast-paced first-person shooters. The gaming experience was also slightly better without DLSS/frame generation, as enabling them seemed to increase latency a little further. We noticed this primarily in Forza Horizon 6, where an immediate response to steering inputs is particularly important. For slower titles such as Flight Simulator 2024, however, this is not an issue. HDR gaming was not supported on the Googlebook 15, though.
For casual gamers in particular, streaming is a great way to play even current titles such as Gears of War E-Day without investing in expensive gaming hardware. This is also where the Lenovo Googlebook 15 shows its strengths: games look excellent on the OLED panel, and the sound system is also very good.
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